Friday, October 28, 2011

Free Motion Friday Week 4: Bright Star

Welcome to the fourth week of our practice-a-long!   How are you feeling?  Are you having fun?  Are you any more confident?  Anyone think they're improving?  Good!  Our linky is growing with each post, so Hello and Welcome to our new participants.  We are happy to have a giggle with you.  Hope you have a good sense of humor :)

To remind you, this week we were trying to stitch something resembling this Bright Star pattern from the Free Motion Quilting Project.


Want to see how it went for me?  I was confident.  Confident that I could stitch a straight line.  No problem, right.  Right?  Well, apparently I was too big for my britches....




It's OK.  It's better than last week, but still could use some serious practice.  I liked the straight lines, liked flipping the sandwich around as I went (so I didn't have to peer behind that pesky needle) and liked the simplicity.  Still, I'd hit bumps on my machine bed that would jar my pushing or pulling, resulting in a jolt on the straight line.  This was done without my usual relaxing techniques (AKA drinks or lullabies) but instead just breathing long, slow, calming breaths.  The good thing was, at the end my shoulders were not up at my ears!  It's working!

The back was fine.  No weirdness to report there, thank goodness.


 
Normally I will use Mr. Random to choose our week's challenge from your list of suggestions, but this week I thought something in the Halloween spirit might be fun.  Why don't we give Stomach Lining a try?   Yes, one of you suggested this piece of tastiness :)  Here is the photo from the Free Motion Quilting Project to guide us:


And our go-to video tutorial: 




Good luck!  Here's hoping the curvy lines do me well this week :)

Join in the linky below and see what others were up to this week.  (Thanks a million to Laura who sorted out my linky issues!)  Spread the encouragement and tips, please!  It's the only way we will learn.  If you need a reminder on the spirit of Free Motion Friday, please read the original post again.


17 comments:

Manda said...

Stomach lining looks impossible! :)
I think your bright star worked well! Good to hear your relaxing into it a bit, I'm the same with FMQ!

Canadian Abroad said...

At least all your points met in the middle. I would have cheated and straight line quilted this week's challenge! Love next week's!

Mrs Flying Blind... said...

Oh so the idea is to scare the cr*p out of us eh for next week!? It's worked!

Your star looks good though - the centre is way neater than mine!!

Nicky said...

I am impressed that the lines all meet in the middle I think that will be the most difficult bit - I actually practised a bit with pencil and paper to see if it will make a difference - here's hoping!

I think stomach lining looks better than the name! Good choice!

Rhonda the Rambler said...

I really need to share the tool my husband made to practice my FMQ on. I will write post up for that. Remind me if I forget would ya! It really was simple to make and is quite handy. OK...now on to you! You did a great job. And I am impressed because you are not picking easy designs. Way to go!!!

Pat Merkle said...

WOW, I think you Bright Star looks great. Your skills are definitely improving. I don't think I can say the same for me this week!

Thanks for picking some curves for next week!

Katy Cameron said...

Yours looks pretty good, only a couple of wobbles I can see. As for next week. Um, yeah, I'm glad I'm waiting a bit to catch up with this ;o) I'm going to head for the lessons at the end of November (after slight life interventions)

Elizabeth Dackson said...

Stomach lining?!?!?!?!?!?! Holy cow, you've got me cracking up over here!! I really keep wanting to join you girls on your FMQ journey, and I keep getting side-tracked. I'm hoping I can find the time to catch up and try to stretch my FMQ skills real soon :)

Indianna said...

Looks like you are improving. I did a FM embroidery course and from that we were told to slow down moving the material around....or foot down for more speed - both these reduce your stich length and make it look neater. Worth a try?

Janine @ Rainbow Hare said...

I love that black and white. Your's really does look like a bright star!
Have you considered Leah's suggestion about taping a sheet of Teflon over your machine? I've not tried it but I wonder if would help with the bumps on your machine bed. Looking forward to the gruesomely named stomach lining!

Archie The Wonder Dog said...

It looks great! Stomach lining looks scary - good luck with it!

Lynne said...

Oh my! I haven't even started the first one - which looked hard enough - but that "stomach lining" causes my stomach to do flip-flops!

Lucy | Charm About You said...

I think you did really well! Not that many wobbles and it's definitely a star :)
Next week is freaking me out!

Jodi B. said...

Ah, your star looks nice. And, you hit the middle!

Pamela said...

That doesn't look bad at all! I agree with Indianna, a little more speed on the foot control and slow your hands down, smaller stitches make everything look neater. (And if you look closely at Leah's there are a few slight bobbles - but the overall effect is really what you see most!)

Sarah said...

Oh you've done a great job Cindy, only a couple of teeny wee wobbles. Cant believe you're going with stomach lining... that is going to be so funny ;-)

Sarah @ FairyFace Designs said...

Your star looks great! But seriously, what are you trying to do to us? And is that stomach lining before or after the Halloween booze??!! lol! Sorry I couldn't link up this week, will do it on the double next week.

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